nice to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by
a blush, brightness and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her
head was easily poised on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably
good; but all this was unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by
the doubt. As the sun is wanted to glorify the right features of a
landscape, this girl thirsted for a dose of golden flattery. She felt,
without envy of her sister, that Dahlia eclipsed her: and all she
prayed for was that she might not be quite so much in the background and
obscure.

But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit--was opening
its arms to her. In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty
thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the
splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue
heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being
beckoned.

At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken
of in public. Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia,
on the like occasion. He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two
instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar
anxiety as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train.
"That's a thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing," he said.
"You can't stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop.
Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam,
I feel like a baby. You can't stop trains."

"You can trip 'em," said Anthony, a remark that called forth general
laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources.

Rhoda was vexed by Robert's devotion to his strength. She was going, and
wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at
him more. He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw
verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy
matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his
fondness for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmer's life was best,
and gave Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London.

She sneered in her soul, thinking "how little he knows of the constancy
in the nature of women!" adding, "when they form attachments."

Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he
expressed, that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March
sunshine, and see the gr